SKOS

Publication date: 2009-08-18 Created by: Semantic Web Deployment Working Group List of documents at: http://www.w3.org/standards/techs/skos

Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)

Overview

SKOS is a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web.

Many knowledge organization systems, such as thesauri, taxonomies, classification schemes and subject heading systems, share a similar structure, and are used in similar applications. SKOS captures much of this similarity and makes it explicit, to enable data and technology sharing across diverse applications.

The SKOS data model provides a standard, low-cost migration path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a lightweight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. It may be used on its own, or in combination with formal knowledge representation languages such as the Web Ontology language (OWL).

Recommended Reading

The official SKOS documents, published in 2009, include a SKOS Primer. The SWD Working Group, that published this Recommendation is now closed.

A number of textbooks have been published on RDF, RDFS, and on Semantic Web in general. Please, refer to a separate page listing some of those, as maintained by the community. That list also includes references to conference proceedings and article collections that might be of general interest.

Welcome to the SKOS community wiki!

This site is a collaborative space open to the entire SKOS community. It complements the official W3C SKOS web site and the SKOS mailing list.

It replaces replacing the old ESW SkosDev wiki, taking into account that SKOS is now an official W3C standard and has evolved since the SkosDev wiki was started.

Your contributions are most welcome!

Content

• Specifications, Documentation and References
• RDF Vocabularies
• Case Studies
• Find & Share SKOS Data
• SKOS data validation and quality control
• Legacy links to Software Applications and Tools
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Proposals & Issues
• Relevant Organizations
• Mailing List and Contact
• Translations of the SKOS documents and RDF files

Tools that are listed as relevant to SKOS

(Note that you can browse tools per tool categories or programming languages, too.)

Last modified and/or added

The description of the following tools have been added and/or modified most recently.

• Skosmos (last modified: 7 July 2014)
• Semantic Turkey (last modified: 17 February 2014)
• VocBench (last modified: 17 February 2014)
• Apache Marmotta (last modified: 9 February 2014)
• Web Services for Economics (last modified: 25 September 2013)

All relevant tools

This is a list of all tools listed on this wiki, and that are marked as relevant to SKOS.

• ASKOSI - Application Services for Knowledge Organization and Systems Integration (api, validator, browser). Directly usable from Java
• Callimachus, a Linked Data management system (programming environment, browser, sparql endpoint, special browser, visualizer, development environment). Directly usable from Java, Javascript
• ClioPatria (triple store, programming environment, reasoner, rule reasoner). Directly usable from Prolog, C
• Helping with Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering (HIVE) (editor, extractor).
• iQvoc (editor, api).
• Linked Media Framework (triple store, rule reasoner). Directly usable from Java
• Lexaurus (editor, registry).
• MMI Ontology Registry and Repository (api, editor, registry).
• Apache Marmotta (triple store, rule reasoner). Directly usable from Java
• Intelligent Topic Manager (triple store, editor). Directly usable from Java
• Mulgara Semantic Store (triple store). Directly usable from Java
• OWLtoSKOS (converter).
• Finnish Ontology Library Service ONKI (api, visualizer, registry). Directly usable from Java, Javascript
• Open Metadata Registry (editor, registry).
• PoolParty (editor, sparql endpoint, api, tagging, visualizer). Directly usable from Java, Javascript
• PoolParty Extractor (PPX) (converter, rdf generator, extractor, tagging, api). Directly usable from Java
• PoolParty Semantic Search(PPS) (semantic search server, programming environment, api). Directly usable from Java
• qSKOS - Quality Criteria for SKOS Vocabularies (validator). Directly usable from Java
• Rhizomer (special browser, rdf or owl browser). Directly usable from Java, Javascript
• SKOS API (api). Directly usable from Java
• SKOS Consistency Checker (validator).
• SKOS Play! (visualizer, browser). Directly usable from Java
• SKOS_WS (api). Directly usable from Javascript, PHP, Java, Ruby, .NET
• SKOS2GenTax (converter).
• SKOS2OWL (converter, rdf generator).
• … further results

Note: if you are interested to add your tool, please consult the separate Tool Contributors’ page. This is especially valuable if your tool is only listed on the deprecated [tool page].

Additional material

• White paper Vocabulary Management
• SKOS Repository REST http API